


anyone's ghost

by fathomfive



Category: Bleach
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Shared Trauma, afterlife administration, and the ways it's not shared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25024687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomfive/pseuds/fathomfive
Summary: Hinamori and her new captain have nothing in common but the first, worst thing.To get the Fifth Division off the ground they're going to have to pull all-nighters, scale the cliffs of bureaucracy, strengthen new and old bonds - and maybe do something really drastic, like trust someone whose mistakes can't be erased.
Relationships: Hinamori Momo & Hirako Shinji
Comments: 24
Kudos: 91





	anyone's ghost

**Author's Note:**

> for clarity's sake: I wrote most of this before reading any TYBW, and ended up ignoring what that arc says about hollowfication because it did not vibe with my metaphor.
> 
> title from the song of the same name by The National. _I had a hole in the middle where the lightning went through, I told my friends not to worry_

Before Hinamori ever laid eyes on her new captain, she had to sit through a mental assessment, a physical assessment, another mental assessment just to be sure, and a tense and cryptic briefing at the Second Division. She sat in a room full of Onmitsukidou operatives who wore no insignia and did not volunteer their names. They watched as she read the file that had been pushed across the table to her.

It didn’t take long; most of it was redacted. When she finished, the woman who seemed to be in charge smiled blandly and said, “After one hundred years, we cannot presume to know anything about Hirako Shinji. The Visored exiles are a resource we can’t afford to ignore. But we must all be wary.”

“Of course,” Hinamori had said. She understood the not-order she was being given. “I’ll pay very close attention to him.”

Three days later she was summoned to First Division headquarters, for the reinstatement of the long-lost captain of the Fifth.

There were no crowds. She went inside, where it was still and quiet, and waited at the desk for the aide to check her in. While she stood there, she saw Lieutenant Sasakibe and another man at the far end of the hall.

Lieutenant Sasakibe looked as close as he ever got to uncomfortable, which was to say that one side of his mustache was slightly higher than the other. The man with him was a splash of incongruous color: bright hair, garish Living World clothes. He had long thin legs and long thin hair and a long thin mouth set in a peculiar frown. Lieutenant Sasakibe offered him a black and white bundle, and after a moment he took his hands out of his pockets to accept it.

"You’re all set,” said the aide, making a decisive mark in her ledger. “Zanpakutou, please.” Hinamori complied. When she looked up, Lieutenant Sasakibe had gone, but the other man was lingering in the doorway. His eyes were on her. She smiled automatically and waited for him to look away. He touched the brim of his cap and nodded, and vanished into the room beyond.

Hinamori waited in the antechamber until Lieutenant Sasakibe cracked the door. Inside, the only other people present were the Captain-Commander and the man from the hallway. He had changed into a uniform and haori, brand-new of course because the old regalia of the Fifth had been unceremoniously discarded. Hirako Shinji fixed her with an intent look that she couldn’t read at all.

“Hey there, Lieutenant,” he said. “You good?”

“I’m—it’s very nice to meet you, sir,” she said, and bowed. From that angle she saw his eyes slide sideways and his mouth screw open at one end to reveal what seemed like more than the usual number of teeth.

“We’ve met,” he said. He hesitated. “I never did apologize properly for that time, though. Sorry for knocking you around.”

Hinamori had a brief flash of memory: her vision more darkness than sky, movement in her periphery. A sword through her chest, radiating burning cold.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said blankly. She pushed the smile up onto her face again. “It’s fine. It’s very nice to see you again.”

The teeth went away. Hirako pursed his lips until his mouth had mostly disappeared. “Good to see you’re doing well,” he said. Then he turned to the Captain-Commander, who had been watching, as he watched everything, with fierce disapproval. “Guess we better get this on with, yeah?”

“Yes,” said the Captain-Commander, as his lieutenant assumed the proper place at his shoulder. “It is time.”

It was not a captain’s induction ceremony. Hinamori had been to one of those, for Toushirou, and between the flags and the crowds and the rows of officers, all lined up seriously to accept another of their number, she had about burst with pride. In this room there was the First, looking stern and unforgiving, Hirako Shinji, looking like he had forgotten everything he had ever learned about proper posture, and herself, Hinamori Momo, hopefully not looking like she was remembering what it felt like to be run through by her oldest friend.

The memory dragged at her. She planted her feet and breathed shallowly through her nose.

“Hirako Shinji,” said the Captain-Commander. “You are aware of the challenges Soul Society faces. You have agreed to take again the rank you held a century ago, and to devote yourself to the defense of Soul Society. If you intend to follow through on this decision, you will now kneel, and swear.”

Hirako made a face like a cat sniffing a lemon. “Whoa, whoa,” he said. “You’re seriously gonna make me swear the oath again?”

“The oath,” said the Captain-Commander, “is the obligation of every captain in the Gotei 13.”

“Yeah, sure, definitely,” Hirako said. “No argument there. Only, I’m not sure why you need me to go through the whole thing again.”

The Captain-Commander’s burning gaze was fixed on him. Hirako clicked his tongue ring across his teeth with the air of a man counting out coins. Meanwhile the room got steadily hotter. “I swore my oath,” he said. “It’s not as though I just threw it away when it stopped being useful.”

“You only bowed to circumstance,” said the Captain-Commander. “Is that what you would have me believe?” He leaned forward, gripping the head of his staff. “You underestimate my memory,” he said. “I know what kind of man you are.”

Hirako smiled thinly. Hinamori watched sidelong and prayed vehemently for him to can it. In the end, all he said was, “I bet you do.”

Then he folded himself down to the floor, and recited with careful deliberation the Gotei captains’ oath. It went like this:

_Under the eye of the Soul King, under the hand of the Commander, and at the heel of the governance of Seireitei, I swear to uphold the sanctity and security of Soul Society until the span of my own soul is done. I will lead by example and submit by my leadership. I am for the law, and the law is for balance._

“The First witnesses,” said the Captain-Commander.

“The Fifth witnesses,” said Hinamori.

The Captain-Commander thumped his staff, and the impact echoed. “And so it is done,” he said. “Your compatriots were not nearly as disagreeable about this, Captain Hirako.”

Captain Hirako’s mouth curled at the corners, humorless and pleased. “That’s because they’re nice guys,” he said. “But if you didn’t want a little something extra, you shouldn’t have let any of us back in the place.”

He stood, and swept out the door with the disgruntled expressions of the First following behind. Hinamori made mental note of his taste for a dramatic exit, bowed hastily, and trotted out after him.

They retrieved their zanpakutou and descended the broad steps into sunlight. Captain Hirako strode right off through the inner district without hesitation. But he kept glancing back at her, just a flicker of his keen gaze over one shoulder. She measured her steps to his, four back and two to the right, and waited for him to speak. Six blocks from the First’s headquarters, he broke the silence.

“Sasakibe told me you’d set up an assembly,” he said. “Re-orientation, that kind of thing.”

“We have a briefing with the seated officers, first thing, then muster call for the division,” she said. “I didn’t specify in the notice, but if you’d like to make a speech—”

“Eeegh,” Captain Hirako said. “I gotta, don’t I?”

“I think everybody’s expecting it, yes,” she said carefully. “I made notes, if you’d like something to work with.” She made herself stop there. She didn’t feel good about the notes. Not because she was bad at writing addresses—teachers and superiors had commended her many times, Aizen among them. When she was promoted to Lieutenant, he had written her a congratulatory haiku. _The stream’s voice is humble in its clarity._

That was the problem. When she heard her voice, she heard his too.

“Nah, I’m not really a speech guy,” Captain Hirako was saying. “I’ll make, you know,” he held a finger up, “remarks. I’ll think of something.”

“Of course,” she said, humble and clear.

“And lunch after that,” he said, in the tones of a man who was trying to speak his aspirations into being.

“If you’re okay with a working lunch,” she said. “There’s a bit of a backlog in the paperwork. It’s—well, it’s big.” She had let a lot slip during her recovery, and the internal affairs investigation had slowed things down even further.

“Of course there is,” he said. “I consider it my welcoming gift. You happen to know if they’ve updated Form 610 in the past hundred years?”

“I don’t know that one,” she said. “600 level—it’s Living World operations?”

“Long-term gentei kaijo management,” he confirmed.

“Oh—well, those cases are processed through Forms 611, 611-A, and 612,” she said. “You have to submit them together.”

“Oh, of course,” he said. “That sounds right. Hey, is it too late for me to run? You sure you don’t wanna be captain?”

Her face must have done something, because he stuck a thin hand out of the sleeve of his haori and flapped it hastily. “Joking, I was joking,” he said. “I’ll live. I’ll thrive. I’ll sign stuff ‘til my hand falls off.”

“Form 611 is four pages long,” she said. “Not counting the appendices.”

“This is so nostalgic I can barely stand it,” he announced. “Good thing I have you around, huh?”

That seemed rhetorical. She kept the pace. They walked a little further in silence, and she caught another quick glance over his shoulder. Finally his hand emerged from the sleeve again, and he gestured to her.

“Come on up here,” he said. “You don’t need to hang back like that. I gotta see who I’m walking with.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and quickened her steps.

At the Fifth’s barracks, they met with the seated officers in the common room between the captain and lieutenant’s offices. It looked out over the gardens, where the gravel had been neatly raked over and the plum tree still wore its protective winter wrapping. Captain Hirako recognized a few of the officers, a fact which put them immediately on edge. They had been subject to a less informative, probably scarier version of the briefing Hinamori had gotten. To wit, their new captain was no longer dead or a dangerous criminal, but a normal Gotei officer who should be respected as such; only he was also not a normal officer and should be carefully monitored as such, for signs of subversion or vaguely defined terrible power.

These important notes in mind, everyone sat around the table and waited for someone else to speak. Captain Hirako eyed them all and grinned. It did nothing for the atmosphere, and from the curl at the corner of his mouth, Hinamori thought he knew it.

He asked the right questions, though. He wanted to get right to the details: training schedules, administration, recruitment. His questions were pointed and he used them to pry what he wanted out from behind the tight smiles everyone wore. It kept the room busy enough that no one asked what he had been doing for the past hundred years. The personnel file had said, _At large in the Living World._

Anyway, none of them had presence of mind to spare for the past. It was better that way, there were actions to be actioned and requirements to be requisitioned. The officers of the Fifth were good at that. They had been trained to go about things diligently and correctly and without thinking too much at all.

It was almost noon by the time they all trooped down to the assembly hall. The rest of the division was beginning to gather, and when they had all packed in, Captain Hirako sloped up onto the dais and stared down at them. He showed his teeth in a pensive sort of way. The front row leaned back a little.

“’Morning, everyone,” he said. “Lieutenant Hinamori wrote a notice, so I figure you all know who I am. And I figure you’ve got questions.” He paused, his eyes roving around the room. It was unclear if he liked what he saw. “According to command I’m not allowed to answer the really interesting ones,” he went on. “But anything else you got, you can lay it on me. I’ll be in the office until I go gray, so you’ll be able to find me no problem.”

Hinamori saw him glance her way again. He set his shoulders and returned his gaze to the crowd.

“I’ll do my best to stay where you can find me,” he said. “I swore an oath, but you guys weren’t in the room for that, so I have something else I want to say to you.” He fidgeted with a hank of hair and dropped it. Hinamori realized that he had thought very carefully about whatever was coming next.

“I chose this division once, when I was younger and a lot dumber,” he said. “Now that I’m a hundred years older and maybe wiser, I choose it again. And it’s the thing all of you chose, for your own reasons.” He paused. He still seemed to be searching for something among all of their faces. “The past is not what we’re about,” he said. “Let’s make sure nobody forgets our reasons.”

The assembled shinigami bowed, in a neat wave that swept down the assembly. They knew what to do when a superior officer was done speaking. Looking at them, Hinamori knew exactly who in the first three rows had applied for transfers to other divisions, and the order in which they had done it. But she supposed she couldn’t blame anybody for a lack of faith.

“Yeah, all right, dismissed,” Captain Hirako said as he came down off the dais. “For now, keep on with your regular assignments. Things are going to shake up a little when patrol rotations come around next month, but you’ll have notice before then. Hinamori, c’mon.”

She followed him into the office, one step right and three steps behind. It was the right angle to watch his features tighten for a second as he crossed the threshold. A momentary bracing, there and then gone.

Lunch was mostly paperwork. Captain Hirako had claimed he would live, but an hour in, he seemed to doubt it. He bounced his leg. He perched. He hummed. He leaned over his desk toward the portable worktop she had dragged in from her own office, and read her reports upside down. She sat across from him, and stacked forms neatly in her outbox as they were completed.

Little by little it dawned on her that he was uncomfortable—in the chair, in the uniform, in the hushed and tidy headquarters of the Fifth, where the heart had not been ripped out of the place so much as revealed to have never been there at all.

“Sir,” she said, while he had his feet up on the chair, hunching over his knees to decipher the Fourth seat’s terrible handwriting. “Do you—”

“Hmm?” he peered up at her, expressionless.

_Do you even want to be here?_

“Do you need more ink?” she said.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m good. Thanks.” He seemed to be about to say something else, but instead the silence hung there. Hinamori bent her head over her work.

In the days that followed, she kept not asking the question. It wasn’t a fair thing to ask anyone—and was there any point at all in knowing the answer? She signed off on several of the oldest transfer requests, and brought them to him for final authorization. He had a brief closed-doors meeting with each of the shinigami who had asked to leave, and then he let them go. The Thirteenth Division accepted all comers. The Eleventh didn’t care where you came from as long as you made a suitably loud landing. The Sixth Division accepted a handful, and then sent a coolly worded note reminding the Fifth that the quarterly cap on personnel transfers existed for a reason.

“Oh my god, who does he think he is,” Captain Hirako said, curling his lip at the offending stationery. “Is this scented?” He waved it in Hinamori’s direction.

The answer was that Kuchiki Byakuya thought he was Kuchiki Byakuya, and all things stemmed from that. “Hyacinth, I think,” Hinamori said. “It’s very nice.”

“Yeah, nice and expensive,” Captain Hirako said. “I ever tell you about the time he fell through the roof of one of those Kuchiki storehouses while he was fucking around learning shunpo? His gramps threatened to stuff him into a pickling vat and leave him there until his beard came in. Judging by his face these days, he oughta still be in there.”

“Uh,” said Renji, who was hovering in the middle of the common room. He often worked to balance the Kuchiki effect by delivering messages in person. “That’s really my only business here. I should go.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to hear more educational stories about Kuchiki,” Captain Hirako said, because he had an unerring and terrible instinct for that sort of thing. Renji’s face contorted briefly with longing.

“I. Have a meeting,” he said. “Hinamori, good to see you again. You’re looking way better. Catch you later, okay?”

“We’ll do lunch sometime,” she said, even though they’d both said it before and “sometime” had failed to materialize. “Thanks, Abarai-kun.”

“Captain Hirako, nice to meet you properly,” Renji said, backing out of the room. Captain Hirako followed teeth-first, wafting the note in his direction. It really was a very nice scent.

“Come around anytime,” he said. “We look forward to more perfumed communication.”

“That was not my choice,” Renji said, and made his escape down the hall. Captain Hirako’s grin widened.

“Nice kid,” he said. “He a friend of yours?”

“We were at the Academy together,” Hinamori said. “It’s—been a while.”

(“I worry that you rely too much on the opinions of your classmates,” Aizen had said to her once. “I’m sure their own concerns keep them very busy.” She had agreed with him, of course. It seemed eminently clear. After a while she didn’t see her old friends much at all.)

“How many left?” Captain Hirako said. “Transfer requests, I mean.”

“Twenty-three,” she said promptly. “A few more came in over the weekend, once it got out that the Fourth was bumping their kidou proficiency requirements down.”

“Who woulda known we had so many go-getters,” he muttered. He was chewing his lip, peeved and calculating. “Slow them down as much as you can,” he said. “Tell you the truth, I’ve been depending on that transfer cap. We need to let the regulations hold this back until—” he broke off with an irritated shrug.

Hinamori didn’t ask until what. She had shut off that avenue of inquiry when she was a week off bed rest and couldn’t climb stairs without losing her breath. One day at a time.

One at a time was how the days kept going, which was its own kind of mercy. To an outside observer, the Fifth Division would have looked the same as ever, but inside they were climbing mountains of paperwork, slogging through internal affairs compliance measures, and trying every possible trick to increase retention (“I can get us a Living World vending machine for the barracks,” Captain Hirako had said. “Do not ask me where. This is gonna be a game-changer.”)

“Good morning, sir,” Hinamori said, waving on her way into the office the next Monday. The Ninth seat cast her a beseeching look which she politely ignored.

“’Morning, Hinamori,” Captain Hirako said. “Okay, c’mon, Watari, stick with me here. The first guy goes to the mic and he says, ‘Hey, I heard the fish is discounted today...’”

Hinamori retreated into her office until the captain had finished inflicting his joke and received a strained laugh in return. The Ninth seat fled politely, and she came out to check the shared dispatch board. Captain Hirako was at his desk, folding a memo into something a memo was not supposed to be. There was a particular tension to his expression that she recognized. He didn’t like it when the office was empty.

“What are we listening to today, sir?” she said.

He brightened immediately. She had hit upon this method about a week ago, and it had met with consistent success. “Miles Davis, _Sketches of Spain_ ,” he said. “This is a first pressing. It’s the thing I treasure most in life, after my hat collection.”

“That’s what you said about _‘Round About Midnight_ too,” she said. “And the one before that.”

“I treasure a lot of things,” he said. “I’m very liberal that way.” He held up a finger through a cascade of trumpet and tambourines. She listened politely.

“You strike me as the traditional music type,” he said, aiming the finger at her. She tried not to look startled. “Biwa, yeah? Or shamisen?”

“It’s that obvious?” she said, recovering. “I do like the _Mountain Rain_ series a lot. I saw it performed back at the Academy, and for a while I wanted to learn the biwa parts.”

“You didn’t?” he said.

“Not enough time,” she said. She had been studying in every spare second, memorizing kidou incantations until she heard them in her dreams. She shrugged, realized she was looking self-conscious, and hastily rearranged her expression. “That’s the way it goes, I guess.”

“While I was in the Living World, I learned to play the saxophone,” he said. He leaned over the desk, grinning conspiratorially. It was the first detail he had volunteered about what being At Large meant. She found herself leaning in too. “I am very bad,” he said, with relish. “One day I’ll play for you and you can confirm it.”

“I’m sure you’re all right,” she said, feeling like this was a quiz she hadn’t studied up for.

“Nope. Terrible,” he said. He was already turning back to his work. She headed for her office with some relief. As she went, he said, “Take a proper lunch break today, Momo.”

“Only if you do, sir,” she said, and shut the door.

She forgot all about that exchange until a few hours later, when he strode into her office and made an emphatic shooing motion that whiffed her bangs around. She leaned back slightly and said, “Sir?”

“I’m going to lunch,” he announced. “I’m kidnapping Watari and that kid from morning patrol to entertain me. You are also going to lunch, out of this building. At a restaurant or something, even.”

“I need to finish this batch of reports by the end of the day,” she said. “It’s fine, I have food here.”

“No way,” he said. “I don’t wanna think about you eating your sad desk snacks while I’m having a great time with Watari and whatsisface. Get outta here. That’s an order.”

“Okamoto,” she said. “If you’re talking about the one with the glasses.”

“That’s the guy,” he said. “Now, up. Out.”

She began gathering her paperwork to take along. He narrowed his eyes at her. She put it down, stood up straight, and laid her hands flat on her desk. “Sir, I don’t need you to baby me,” she said.

He opened his mouth and then shut it again, and she stamped back the urge to apologize. No use, it wound around her chest and squeezed.

She had said something similar to Aizen once. He had smiled, full of warmth, and patted her hand and told her she was brave.

“Ugh,” Captain Hirako said. “I was about to say I didn’t mean it like that, but that’s not true. I kinda did. Sorry.”

“Um. Thank you,” she said.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” he said. “Man, I don’t get you at all. This’d be easier if you’d just get mad at me.” That was more to himself than her. “I mean, I do think you oughta eat real lunch. I know for a fact you had sad desk snacks for dinner last night. You keep a box of the stalest senbei in the afterlife down there, it’s just depressing. I think about it and I get depressed.”

“You were in my snack drawer?” she said.

“It was one in the morning, nothing was open,” he said. “I was on the brink of starvation.” He watched her expectantly.

“I’m not mad about that,” she said. “Maybe I’ll bake something for the office.”

“No!” he said, flapping his hands at her. “The point of this conversation is that you work too much already, okay? I know you’ve been pulling crazy hours since before I got here. You said you don’t want an order, so I’m strongly suggesting in a non-order way that you give it a rest.”

“I was cleared to return to duty,” she said quickly. “I’m _fine_.” Would he have her put under observation again? He couldn’t, he needed her to get the work done. What had she done to betray herself? She went hot-cold all over—he had been there that day. He had seen, just like everyone else had seen, that the man she’d devoted her career to had thought of her as just a toy. Easily used, easily broken.

It was always going to be the first thing anyone knew about her. “I was fully cleared by the Fourth Division,” she repeated.

“What? I’m not calling that into question,” he said. The caution in his voice seemed overloud and ill-fitting. Here she was getting it wrong again, getting him wrong. The notion became a sudden heavy fact that pressed the breath out of her. She barely heard him say, “Is that something you think we need to talk about? I read your assessments, I figured—”

She smiled at him. It was like she was standing behind and slightly to the left of herself. He went blank and in the midst of everything else she experienced the brief satisfaction of having him on the back foot.

“Never mind,” she said. “You’re right, sir. I’m going to take my break now.” She kept smiling because otherwise she would lose control of her face. She came around the edge of the desk on the far side from him. He watched her but didn’t say anything.

She left the room, marched three blocks south to the park, and sat down hard on the first bench she saw. The stream lay low against the slope, a glint and murmur in the long grass. Where the sun struck it shone fiercely. She spent ten minutes stewing in furious self-recrimination, and when she was tired of feeling awful, she heaved herself up and went to find something to eat.

She ended up at the hole-in-the-wall yakitori joint she’d frequented as a student. Perched on a stool with a skewer of chicken and a dish of the fantastically hot house spice blend, she tipped back toward equilibrium. Kira and Hisagi showed up not long after, and converged on her happily when they had their own food. They hadn’t seen each other much since the battle.

“I heard you guys are rejoining inter-division drills next month,” Kira said, while she tried to make her food last so they could catch up. “I’m impressed, I didn’t think you’d get moving that fast.”

“Well, Captain Hirako doesn’t like to wait around,” Hinamori said, with a self-conscious laugh. “I suppose Captain Outoribashi wants to take it slower?”

Kira nodded. “We’re not prioritizing advanced training right now,” he said. “Personnel first. Our recruitment numbers were way down even before—everything.”

Hinamori and Hisagi made noncommittal noises. The Third’s previous captain had not been the sort of person who inspired Academy up-and-comers to shoot for his division. Tousen, yes. Aizen, certainly. But Ichimaru Gin, with his thin and knowing smile, and Kira at his heel looking weighed down by manifold sins—not so much.

“How do you like him so far?” Hinamori said, which was really what she had been dying to ask. Captain Outoribashi seemed glossy and grand and slightly up in the air, but he was one of the shinigami who had been At Large In The Living World for a hundred years.

Kira contemplated his tea. “He’s all right, I think,” he said, after a long moment. “He listens.”

Hinamori and Hisagi shared a glance. Neither of them knew much about what Kira’s relationship with Ichimaru had been like. But Ichimaru had liked to twist knives, and Kira came with a handy set of them pre-installed.

“And you?” Kira said, obviously eager to move on. “Captain Hirako seems, uh.”

“Sketchy,” Hisagi offered. “No offense.”

“Ye-es,” Hinamori said. These days she put a lot of energy into making sure that nothing she said sounded crazy, so “sometimes it feels like he’s watching me with his teeth instead of his eyes” was right out. “He’s hard to get through to.”

“Are you trying to say he doesn’t like you?” Kira said indignantly.

“I have no idea what he likes,” Hinamori said. “Except jazz and floppy hats. And these very thin ties, they’re—anyway, it’s not important. We want the same things for the division. That’s what really matters.”

“I’d say getting along matters,” said Hisagi, who had spent the past hundred years wanting to be Muguruma Kensei when he grew up.

“Hm,” said Kira, who assumed people disliked him until he was explicitly told otherwise.

“It’s fine,” Hinamori said firmly. “We talk about the jazz. It’s all right.”

“They’re all full of weird Living World stuff,” Kira said, rescuing her. “Captain Outoribashi brought this conditioner back, and practically forced me to take a case. No idea how he got them to authorize the spirit matter transfer on that, but it’s _amazing_.”

“Oh, I thought I smelled something different, sort of vanilla-y,” Hinamori said, putting a hand out. “Are you...”

“Yeah,” Kira inclined his head, looking pleased and also deeply guilty about being pleased. She felt his hair while Hisagi barked a laugh into one hand.

“So soft!” she said. “That’s really impressive! I guess the Living World is the place to get that stuff, huh.”

“I guess so,” Kira echoed, staring furiously into the top of the table.

“Don’t make me watch this,” Hisagi said nonsensically. “I’ll top that: Captain Muguruma has a motorcycle license.”

“We all know you’re achieving your dreams over there,” Kira said.

“Damn right,” Hisagi said, giving him a proud smile. “I asked him to spar last week and he punted me through the wall of the training room. It was amazing.”

“That’s nice,” Hinamori said. “He seems like a very straightforward person.”

“Yeah,” Hisagi said. He ducked his head suddenly. “But Kuna asked me about the tattoo first thing, and he was _right there_.”

Hinamori and Kira cringed in sympathy. “What’d you say?” Hinamori asked.

“I told the truth,” Hisagi said stoutly. His ears had gone red. “It’s not embarrassing.”

“And then he punted you through a wall,” Kira noted.

“That was unrelated,” Hisagi said. He bounced his leg under the table, making the dishes rattle. “He was—he was cool about it.”

“But what did he say exactly,” Hinamori pressed.

Hisagi made a face. “He said, ‘You’re the sensitive type, aren’t you.’ And then he patted my shoulder really hard and told me it was a good thing I picked the Ninth.”

“I would have died instantly,” Kira announced. “I hope my captain never says anything personal to me, ever.”

“Oh, but that’s good!” Hinamori said. She didn’t want Captain Hirako to say anything personal to her either. Evidence suggested it would go badly.

“I thought so!” Hisagi said, perking up. “But I tried to talk to him about the Seireitei Bulletin and I really don’t think he was interested.”

Hinamori drew a circle on her plate with her empty skewer. There was something else she wanted to know, that they were all carefully not mentioning.

“When you sparred with him,” she said, “did you see—you know.”

Hisagi looked at her. Finally he shook his head. “I saw it once,” he said. “I mean, just a flash of it, in Karakura Town. I felt it when he changed over.”

“Me too,” Kira said. “Not that I got a good look, they were all moving so fast. But it was like a big ripple when they all changed. Not like a Vasto Lorde, sharper, even, with this cold burn.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m glad I didn’t see it properly,” he said.

Now they were both eyeing her curiously. Hinamori realized she had taken too long to respond. “I was just wondering,” she said.

When she couldn’t stall any longer, she excused herself and returned to the barracks. Captain Hirako raised his fingers in a wave as she came through, and she greeted him quietly, and they passed the next few hours without talking about anything more than the intricacies of Form 212.

Late nights and early mornings (sometimes with nothing in between) had become a matter of course for both of them. The captain’s supply of records seemed inexhaustible, and the wandering talk of jazz trumpets carried them through afternoon and into the evening. Sometime after sunset, she wandered into the barracks kitchen with her plate of cracker crumbs, in search of something more dinnerlike.

She stopped on the threshold. Captain Hirako was there at the table, staring down at his ledger. Or, no, not his ledger. She recognized the blue-thread binding even from here. Aizen’s daybook.

Something had spilled over in his expression, brittle and startling. He didn’t look like he was reading from the book. He looked like he was seeing back in time, a hundred years and more, at something he knew he had no power to erase. He was a moment too late to hide it as he glanced up at her.

He looked away quickly, but recognition burrowed into her chest and knocked her breath out for a second.

She set her plate in the sink and busied herself searching the tea shelf. “Not comfortable enough in the office?” she said.

“If I stay there any longer I’m gonna turn into furniture, ass first,” he said. A page turned. She kept her eyes on the tea tins, which hadn’t changed in the last few hours since she’d come in here.

Captain Hirako made a frustrated noise, shoved his chair back, and came over to rifle through the cupboards. She edged away toward the table. She only meant to glance at the book, but then she saw her name.

It froze her in place. Ridiculous. It shouldn’t be able to do that. Heat rose in her chest, in her head, and it took her longer than usual to realize that it was fury. She read, _Lt. Hinamori was instrumental in_ _this update to the archival system._

Aizen had lovely handwriting. She had been pleased to read her name in his careful hand, and when he had written it in formal calligraphy she had felt special. Now she wanted to shout back at him over the years, and ask him how he dared.

“You’re in there a lot,” Captain Hirako said.

Her jaw clicked. She forced it to relax, and turned her head just enough to see him in the corner of her eye. He was half-turned toward the counter still. “You guys worked together pretty closely, huh?” he went on.

She didn’t know what to say to that. It sounded like he was asking her something else. He did something with his hands, moved a dish, something metal. She couldn’t make herself turn her head any further.

“What was your relationship with him?” Captain Hirako said.

“With all due respect, sir,” she snapped, “I don’t have to tell you that.” She was too angry to panic. All the answers she had owed, she had given. They were to the Onmitsukidou and the Central 46 investigation taskforce, and they were as follows:

_No, I have not had contact with the fugitive since I was attacked._

_No, I was not aware of the fugitive’s true intentions._

_Yes, I believed myself to be one of his confidants._

_No, I have no explanation for his actions._

She was owed answers too. But she knew she wasn’t going to get them.

The captain’s face went hard. He turned toward her fully, about to ask her another question. But then, to her surprise, she saw his expression soften by a conscious effort. She waited, her neck stiff, until it became clear that he wasn’t going to rebuke her. She took a steadying breath and said, “There was a time when I thought he was my mentor. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No,” Captain Hirako said quietly. “Right. Of course.” He turned back toward the counter. Hinamori rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen the knot in her neck, and counted her breaths.

After a little while he moved past her and clanked a bowl down on the table at her elbow. She picked it up: ochazuke, with a drift of crumbled seaweed on top. She picked it up and breathed in the fragrant steam. Abruptly her hunger became piercing. She took a bite, and then another, and another, and another.

When she looked up he was staring down at the book again, mechanically spooning his own ochazuke into his mouth. His eyes darted up from the page. “Too salty?” he said. “Not salty enough?” She chewed hastily and swallowed.

“It’s good,” she said.

His posture relaxed so quickly she felt embarrassed looking at him. “Only thing I know how to make, so don’t get any expectations,” he muttered. She spent another moment staring and then fled the kitchen.

Another week passed, and the deadlines began to gang up on them but at least no one said anything personal to anyone else. The seated officers had started to relax around the captain, once they let go of certain expectations for how conversation was supposed to work. They came into the office just to say hello sometimes. One or two even stayed to listen to the music.

One day, Hinamori was watering the plants in the common room when the captain marched through, poking vindictively at his phone. He cut off a call mid-ring, tossed it into a drawer, and backed out of his office. It immediately started ringing again.

“I am out,” he said, baring his teeth. “I am not _present_. I’m at a meeting or something.”

“You do have a meeting, sir,” she said. “In about fifteen minutes, I left a brief in your inbox—”

“My hero,” he said, already halfway into the hall. The phone kept ringing. “We’ll start early. Take a message for me, willya? Tell her I’m busy.”

“Sir?” she said. He waved cheerily and bolted. She went to the drawer and regarded the phone. It seemed to be ringing angrily, but that was probably just the sleep deprivation talking. She flipped it open and read, UNKNOWN NUMBER, CONNECTION NOT AUTHORIZED. She punched the button.

“Captain Hirako’s phone, Lieutenant Hinamori speaking,” she said.

A crackle of laughter. “Wait wait _what_ ,” someone said—a young woman, she thought. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I just said,” Hinamori said, forcing a smile.

“Yeah, okay, his lieutenant,” the caller said. “He’s got you answering his phone—what, he’s too big and important to do it himself now? Tell ‘im if his head gets too big his fucking chicken neck won’t be able to hold it up. Tell him I said that. I’ll wait.”

“He’s not here,” Hinamori said. “Um. Who is this? Can I take a message?”

“Ohhh mygod he’s running from me again,” the caller groaned. “Sarugaki Hiyori, nice to meet you or whatever.”

“Nice to meet you,” Hinamori said, clinging to this pleasantry even though Sarugaki Hiyori had managed to make it sound like an insult.

“Hinamori, right?” Hiyori said. “Fifth Division. Shit, weren’t you that girl who—”

“Yes,” Hinamori said, giving up on the smile.

“Huh. Well, congrats on still being alive, I guess,” Hiyori said. “Shinji has a terminal case of rat infested brain, but most of the time when he tries to kill someone they get dead. So you’re one up on him already, good for you!” She seemed to brighten at the thought. “Okay, yeah, you can take a message.”

“Oh, good,” Hinamori said.

“Right, you listening?” Hiyori said. “You’re shorter than him, so you’re gonna want to get him off balance first thing. He leads with his left leg. Get him in a headlock and squeeze, because he wiggles, and then you tell him, ‘That’s a resounding fuck no thank you from me, you shitdick. Get over here yourself if you’re so worried about it.’ And then you sock him in the kidney, real good. Left or right is up to you.”

“That’s very detailed,” Hinamori said.

“I can repeat it,” Hiyori said. “You got one of those little phone memo pads? Jot it down.”

“That’s fine,” Hinamori said. “I think I’ve got it.”

“If you say so,” Hiyori said. Static crackled over the line. For a moment Hinamori thought she’d hung up. But then she said, less roughly, “Things okay over there? I mean, considering?”

“I—yeah,” Hinamori said, before she could think about it. “Considering. Not good, but okay.”

Hiyori made a listening sort of noise. Then: “He better be acting a gentleman. If he’s not, call me up and I can come kick his teeth in by way of reminder.”

“Like you said, he already missed killing me,” Hinamori said, with an awkward laugh. Her insides shriveled. “What else do I have to worry about?”

“From him? Nothing, really,” Hiyori said. She was quiet for a few seconds. “But do you both a favor, get out your little office label maker and label his ass and his elbows for him so he can tell ‘em apart. Otherwise, you’re good.”

Hinamori gave a snort of laughter. That was when Captain Hirako peered cautiously back through the door. She tried to squash the smile but it rebelled.

“Thank you for the advice, Hiyori-san,” she said, and was rewarded by the captain’s aggrieved expression. “I’ll pass your message on.”

“Remember, left leg,” Hiyori said, and hung up.

Captain Hirako came around the edge of the room and retrieved the folder she’d put on his desk. “Nice conversation?” he said warily.

“Yes,” Hinamori said. “She says no thank you, and advises that you go there yourself. The Living World, I assume.”

His mouth slanted. “I suggested that she might come visit,” he said. “Shoulda known better. But y’know, that doesn’t really sound like her. Very concise. Very polite.”

“Those were definitely words she used,” Hinamori said.

“Words, okay,” he said. “But what about the gestures?”

“It was a phone conversation, sir,” she said. “I wouldn’t know about the gestures.”

He narrowed his eyes and waited. Several long seconds passed. She made a fist and mimed a little gutpunch, tight from the elbow. His answering grin was immediate and reflexive, and she smiled back.

“That sounds about right,” he said.

The following week, Toushirou finally accepted one of her invitations to eat lunch together. He had been sending polite refusal notes since before she was released from the Fourth Division, and when she’d gone to Rangiku, all his lieutenant had done was shake her head and say, “Give him time.”

Spring had finally come, so they sat at one of the outdoor tables at her favorite soba restaurant. He answered all her questions solemnly, and spent long moments staring at her without speaking. It was a form of mild torture, but at least convincing him to order dessert was much easier than usual.

He held off a remarkably long time before he asked her about her new captain.

“Hirako seems aggravating,” he said by way of introducing the topic. “Is he aggravating?”

She thought about it. “He gets distracted easily,” she said. “But he’s very good at origami.”

His brow wrinkled. She could see him deciding not to ask. “But you feel all right about him?” he said. “He’s not—making you uncomfortable?”

“He’s weird,” she said without thinking. Toushirou sat bolt upright in his chair, and she raised her hands before he could offer to commit murder. “I mean—okay weird. I don’t think he’s nefarious.”

“He’s a Visored,” Toushirou said.

“I know,” she said.

“What I mean is, no one really knows what that means,” he said. “A shinigami who’s not whole, Momo. We have no idea how that works, how anyone sustains that kind of—” He broke off.

“I know. I haven’t forgotten,” she said.

Dessert came. Toushirou ate his ice cream in small, severe bites and didn’t look away from her. “Just promise me,” he said, “if you get a bad feeling from him, if something doesn’t seem right, you’ll tell me.”

“That’s if I even notice,” she said, before she could stop herself. “If something’s wrong about him, do you really think I’d notice?”

“Momo,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Please don’t apologize,” he said. “Not for anything. Please.”

He was looking down at the table, stirring his spoon around in his bowl. He looked even smaller than usual right then. “Just promise,” he said. “If you come to me, I’ll believe you no matter what.”

“Shirou-chan,” she said, “you can’t keep on blaming yourself.”

She was going to continue, but the words fled. What she had said rang in her head like a bell. She put her spoon down with a clank, and stared off into the street while people passed. She didn’t know how long for.

When she turned back he was looking at her already. He gave her a small unhappy smile.

“Sure I can,” he said.

She smiled back, the same smile, because how could she not?

They finished eating in companionable silence. On her way back to headquarters, she put in a reservation request at the inter-division training complex.

Thanks to her rank, her reserve went through the next day. She received the confirmation at lunchtime, and kept it in the back of her mind until evening, when the pace of work had slowed. Finally she ran through the day’s major batch of reports, and there were no more deadlines to hide behind. She forced herself out of her seat and across the commons to the neighboring office. Captain Hirako was bent over, fussing with his turntable.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Are you free at the moment?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “My kingdom for a distraction.”

She drew herself up. “I’d like you to spar with me,” she said. “I have a training room reserved. I’ll only take up a little of your time.”

He blinked. “Wait, what? No. _Why_?”

“Please,” she said, before he could get any further. “It’s important. I won’t ask you again, but I need—”

She knew how it would have gone, once upon a time: Aizen would tell her it was not what was best for her, and she would be grateful for the insight. But knowing what you needed and knowing what was best for you were two different things. He was eyeing her with a sharp, uncomfortable curiosity. She met it head-on. “I need you to show me your other face,” she said.

His expression was always shifting, from one guard to another, but now it went still. “It’s not a party trick,” he said.

“That’s why I’m asking,” she said.

So little was clear to her these days. Things that had looked real were empty inside and on the bad days she thought she was one of them. She was afraid to look any closer. But she had to. She would see, and judge.

Something in her face must have convinced him, because he nodded slowly and said, “Okay. Now?”

“If at all possible,” she said.

They walked to the special training block in near silence. It was an underground compound, heavily warded, with stone cells used for high-level kidou practice. As they passed through the arch into the cool interior, the outer wards settled thickly over her senses, muffling her impression of the many souls outside. She checked in and received a heavy iron key with a numbered tag.

They walked straight down for three minutes, following a curving stair of white stone. Their room was near the end of the hall on this level. When she brought the key in range, the ward cycled down with a flicker of blue light. She unlocked the door, stood aside so Captain Hirako could enter, and followed him in.

She turned the key in the lock, and the outside world vanished.

“So, parameters,” she said, and turned away from the door. “I’ve been cleared for everything except heavy combat, and that should come after my physical next month. I think it’s best that I get used to your,” she hesitated, “your hollow reiatsu in a controlled setting. I don’t want to be taken off guard in battle.”

“You think we’ll be going into battle together, huh?” he said.

She turned the key over in her hand. “I think the world’s not done changing,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “So do I.”

“The dossier strongly hinted that you have a time limit,” she went on. “But it didn’t specify.”

“A few minutes,” he said. “It really won’t be long. It feels like a long time for me, but that’s just perception.”

“Oh,” she said, momentarily derailed. “Some kind of selective time-dilation experience? What’s that like?”

“It’s an inner-world thing,” he said slowly, as if wondering how much she really wanted to hear. “A split self.”

She knew a little something about that. “Jinzen?” she said, determined to forge ahead. “Or, no, it can’t be. But something functionally similar? That’s not in any of the literature.”

“Not in this dimension,” he said. “Urahara probably has a whole horrible paper on the psychology of it. I hope I never see it.” He was watching her with keen interest now, smiling a little. “You trying to reverse-engineer me? You got ambitions I don’t know about?”

He was reaching out with his reiatsu as he said it: a tendril of power, a touchstone gesture every shinigami knew well from foundational kidou training. She met it automatically with one of her own. He had some of the most tightly bottled reiatsu of anyone she’d ever met. At close range it had a lively but contained flicker, like a hearth flame. “I—no,” she said. “No. I’m just curious.”

He tilted his head, considering. “I wonder what kinda Visored you’d make,” he said.

She felt her jaw drop a little. He grimaced and shook his head. “Shit, forget I said that,” he said. “It’s old news. I don’t always—think.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” she managed.

He made a rueful noise. “That’s really the last punch you should pull for the next five minutes,” he told her. Then he brought a hand to his temple and clawed down, and his reiatsu boiled over, hot and caustic, until the air felt too thick to breathe.

She could not see his thin alert face with its elastic expressions. In its place was a grinning mask, bone-white, heavily striated—it felt _just_ like a hollow, and she drew her sword without hesitation or thought. Behind it his eyes burned black and golden. His presence felt huge, roiling, fanged.

It really was hollow power. It whirled feverishly, a storm around an emptiness, and cried hunger. In the midst of it he drew Sakanade slowly. Then he dove at her.

He did lead with his left leg—she caught his ankle with Hainawa and pulled. He only went off-balance for a few seconds, but it was enough time for her to call Tobiume before he got in range again. She let the kidou snap before he pulled her down with it.

He tested her defense with sharp, fluid movements, driving the pace up without ever really closing on her. He flared his reiatsu at intervals like the beat of a heart, stronger each time. It bore down, and all her instincts said _monster monster monster._

“Why’d you call me here?” he said, circling.

“Why’d you come?” she said. He made an amused noise, but didn’t answer. “I mean that,” she dared, swinging at a momentary gap in his defense. “You could be anywhere.”

“You couldn’t have asked me this over tea, huh?” The gap was bait—he tried to trip her and she darted back.

“I’d hate to distract you at the office,” she said.

He gave a bark of laughter that was terrifying behind the mask; it rang like the voice of madness. “You’re too kind!” he said. “Really, Lieutenant, you’re too kind.”

He prowled along the wall, rolled his head side to side. She heard his neck crack. “I gotta correct mistakes,” he said suddenly. “That’s the point of all this. I wasn’t a paperwork guy, back then.”

“I can tell you’re trying very hard to be one now,” she said. “I’m grateful for the effort.”

He laughed again, short and sharp. She closed the distance and they whirled across the floor. “Hindsight is a bitch,” he said. “Back then, I thought—well, I did what I thought was best.” His voice was rough. “And I got this to show for it. Funny how we learn.”

“Funny,” she echoed. They broke and circled. Sweat ran down her neck. With a snap of the fingers she dropped Sekienton at his feet, and backed off to catch her breath while the red smoke billowed between them.

A long moment passed. Just her breathing and the sweep and swell of hollow power, prickling hot.

“How long does it feel this way?” she said, into the obscuring cloud. “When does it stop?”

She heard the light sound of his footsteps. “Tell you when I figure it out,” he said.

He stepped from the smoke several meters from where she’d thought he was, and she whirled to block his swing. He bore down, and she put all the strength of her upper body into her guard. She could feel the pressure all the way through her arms into her chest—so there was something there after all. The ache proved it.

“Really though,” he said. “What’s this for? We get plenty of face time in the office, and I’m pretty sure you don’t like me for my personality. If I’m wrong about that, my sincere condolences.”

“I told you, it’s a tactical decision,” she said. “And don’t be sorry on my behalf.”

He shoved at her straining arms. “I thought I made that clear,” he said. “I’m not.”

“You might be the only person in Seireitei who’d say that,” she said. Then she conjured a shield at her off hand, and discharged a fireball. Flames licked at the shield—low intensity, but at close range it was an excellent disorientation technique. He reeled back. When the fire dissipated, his mask had a crack that ran from mouth to temple.

He held his head low between his shoulders. Everything in his posture was bent towards her. The room was reverberating with contained power, but she fell easily into her ready stance. He raised one hand and rapped a nail against his mask. A little ash flaked off.

“Seireitei doesn’t speak for me,” he said. “It’s not like I knew you before this, but I heard enough. You showed up at crunch time. That’s what matters.”

“And what do you think I was doing there?” she said. She wondered when shame would stop rushing up on her when she thought of it. She wondered why shame, searing and private, felt worse than the responsibility.

“Keeping the faith,” he said.

She was saved from having to respond—the crack in his mask lengthened, and the bone fell away in pieces that were gone before they hit the floor. His reiatsu heaved down and settled like the sea after a wave.

He stared at her for a moment and then swiped irritably at his bangs, which were glued to his forehead with sweat. He managed to spread ash all the way through one eyebrow. Then he sheathed Sakanade and bent his head to her, curiously formal. She returned the gesture and let her shikai lapse.

“I did say you don’t have to baby me,” she said, still off-balance.

“I’m not,” he said, exasperated. “I’m being selfish here. We want to make something worth keeping around, I need you backing it up.”

“I don’t—” she fumbled the key out of her sash. “I can’t do what you do,” she said. She went to the door. “You have to know that. I can’t take what he did to me and wear it on my face.” It wasn’t armor, for her. It wasn’t a weapon. It was the hole carved out, the center staved in, and she had spent weeks in bed hating herself for it.

She turned the key and felt the wards drop. She stepped over the threshold and into the hall, and heard him follow after.

“Good,” he said from behind her. “I mean, imagine if it was both of us. The rest of the division would run screaming.”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“No,” he said. “It’s a bad look. Trust me.”

She found that she could. _And if you’re wrong?_ a little voice said.

Well, then she would do what she could to make it right. She knew broken things were never the same again, but she held the words close like a talisman: _make it right, make it right._ She mounted the stairs, and her shadow fell on the stone before her.

“I need you to do your thing entirely if we’re gonna make it,” he said. “I can’t do what you do either.”

“Can’t you?” she said as she climbed. “It sounded to me like you believe in second chances.” A hundred years and he had been called again, and he had answered.

“Nah,” he said. “Not in this world. We don’t go back.”

“Futures, then,” she said. “Do you believe in those?”

He was quiet for a little while. They were still going up. “Well, yeah,” he said finally. “We’re both still here.”

When she didn’t answer, he went on, “Look, I'm gonna do my part, so you just need to hold up your end of things. Deal?”

She thought about the kind of person that needed. She had a mask she wore already. She would climb into it every day until it was just her skin—someday it would happen. She had to believe very hard that it would happen.

“Deal,” she said, and kept climbing.

**Author's Note:**

> if there's a Gotei management/conflict resolution training manual, "sword fight your boss" is definitely somewhere in the first half


End file.
